Christmas in July: Christmas capitalism and dominant religious culture in America

Christmas in July. While I am by no means an expert on religion, I'd like to take a moment to talk about what a weird phenomenon this is, and how it illustrates the dominance of Christianity in America, a country with no official religion that claims to be a strong proponent of the separation of church and state.

The dominance of Christianity in America is visible everywhere. From smaller things like the fact that there is always Christmas music on the radio from November-January, to the larger things like days off for most public schools being centered around Christmas, rather than any other religious holiday in winter. There is also the fact that stores have plenty of stock for Christmas centric items as well as for Easter ones, but barely any for Hannukah or any other Jewish holiday, not to mention the total absence of items for Kwanza, Diwali, Eid, and countless other religious holidays.

This brings me to my next point: Christmas has evolved to be a heavily capitalistic holiday, in a way that most other religious holidays, especially outside of Christianity, are. The dominance of Christmas in America may have as much to do with religious discrimination and xenophobia as it does with the fact that the holiday has become less about religion and more about consumerism. To illustrate this further, we have "Christmas in July" events, which have nothing to do with Christmas, the religious holiday, and everything to do with Christmas, the consumer phenomenon.

To wrap this post up, a few disclamers: I am not hating on any one religion, or saying that any religion is better than another. Rather, I just find it interesting that Christmas dominates both American culture and American consumerism, and that these two things are so heavily linked.